John  Leighton  Wilson 


WARREN  C.  TAYLOR 

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©  ©  © 


PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
Executive  Committee  of  Foreign  Missions 
Post  Office  Box  Number  158 
Nashville,  Tennessee 


EDUCATIONAL  DEPARTMENT 


John  Leighton  Wilson 

One  of  Union’s  Great  Missionaries 
Warren  C.  Taylor. 

Through  mission  study  and  the  great  war 
the  attention  of  the  church  has  been  directed 
this  year  to  Africa.  Study  of  this  continent 
could  not  be  made  without  reference  to  the 
great  achievements  of  the  early  pioneers. 
Among  these  there  are  few  who  can  com¬ 
pare  with  John  Leighton  Wilson,  a  graduate 
of  Union  College  in  the  class  of  1829. 

Wilson  was  born  March  25,  1809,  of  godly 
parents,  in  the  town  of  Salem,  South  Caro¬ 
lina.  His  childhood  was  spent  in  a  cultured, 
Christian  home.  His  early  life  on  the  farm 
gave  him  a  strong  physique  and  an  intense 
love  for  nature  which  in  later  years  served 
him  well  in  Africa. 

His  early  education  was  in  the  log  school- 
house.  This  was  followed  by  study  in  the 
High  School  at  Winnsboro,  South  Carolina. 
But  when  it  came  to  the  selection  of  a  col¬ 
lege  his  pious  father  was  unwilling  to  send 
him  to  the  South  Carolina  College.  For 
while  this  was  a  school  with  a  high  standard 
of  scholarship,  at  this  time  it  had  for  its 
president  a  man  who  was  an  avowed  atheist. 
Fearing  that  his  boy  might  be  shaken  in 
his  faith,  his  father  sent  him  to  Union  Col¬ 
lege,  where  he  could  be  under  the  influence 
of  Dr.  Nott.  This  was  an  expensive  decision 
in  those  days,  involving  a  long  journey  for 
the  lad. 

Wilson  entered  the  Junior  class  at  Union 
in  the  fall  of  1827  and  graduated  in  June, 
1829.  Some  of  his  first  letters  written  home 
tell  of  his  homesickness,  but  soon  he  made 
friends,  some  of  whom  remained  true  to  the 
end  of  his  life.  Notable  among  these  was 


Dr.  J.  B.  Adger,  who  became  a  successful 
missionary  to  the  Armenians  in  Turkey. 

He  gained  a  fondness  for  walking,  and  his 
letters  describe  some  of  the  tramps  taken 
into  the  country  around  Schenectady.  In 
particular,  he  describes  the  march  to  the 
Catskills  of  a  company  of  student  cadets, 
“with  knapsacks  on  our  backs  and  muskets 
on  our  shoulders.”  Years  afterward  in  Af¬ 
rica,  he  refers  to  the  wonderful  view  which 
impressed  him  from  the  “highest  peak  of 
the  mountains.” 

Following  his  graduation  at  Union,  Wil¬ 
son  taught  school.  During  this  first  year, 
he  became  deeply  impressed  religiously  and 
gave  up  teaching  to  enter  the  Theological 
Seminary  at  Columbia,  South  Carolina. 
While  here  he  became  strongly  interested 
in  the  foreign  missionary  enterprise  and  on 
Christmas,  1832,  he  offered  himself  as  a  mis¬ 
sionary,  with  the  desire  to  be  sent  to  Africa. 
This  desire  had  had  its  first  conception  in 
the  stories  of  that  land  to  which,  as  a  lad,  he 
had  listened  in  the  negro  cabins  at  home. 

The  American  Board  of  Commissioners 
for  Foreign  Missions  accepted  his  offer  and 
sent  him  first  on  an  exploring  expedition  to 
the  West  Coast  of  Africa.  The  object  of  the 
journey  was  to  reach  Liberia  and1  then  ex¬ 
plore  up  and  down  the  coats  and  inland  in 
order  to  determine  conditions  in  Africa  and 
to  select  a  suitable  location  for  starting  mis¬ 
sionary  work.  He  remained  in  Africa  for 
five  months,  making  a  thorough  investiga¬ 
tion  of  conditions.  Then  he  returned  home 
to  present  the  board  a  full  and  valuable  re¬ 
port.  After  a  few  months  he  sailed  back 
to  Africa,  accompanied  by  his  bride.  For 
seven  years  they  labored  at  Cape  Palmas, 
building  up  a  Christian  community  and  mak¬ 
ing  extended  journeys  into  the  continent, 
mostly  on  foot. 

His  life  was  full  of  dangerous  adventure. 
In  the  early  part  of  1836  the  bravery  of  Wil- 


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son  and  his  wife  was  the  means  of  quelling 
a  bitter  anti-foreign  riot  which  had  been 
aroused  among  the  natives  toward  the  for¬ 
eigners  who  came  to  settle  there.  In  more 
than  one  of  his  journeys  he  came  in  contact 
with  cannibals.  In  one  instance,  when  he 
was  upon  an  exploring  tour  with  only  a  few 
attendants,  he  became  too  sick  to  continue 
his  journey,  so  he  lay  down  under  a  tree. 
One  of  his  attendants  warned  him  that  the 
villagers  had  decided  to  eat  him  at  night. 
In  fact  they  had  agreed  that  it  would  be  un¬ 
necessary  to  use  any  salt  because  of  his 
whiteness.  Far  from  any  human  help,  he 
felt  he  was  in  the  Master’s  service  and,  seek¬ 
ing  His  strength,  he  gave  orders  to  go  on. 

After  seven  years  at  Cape  Palmas,  Wilson 
started  a  new  station  on  the  Gaboon  River. 
This  began  a  new  and  prosperous  period 
in  his  missionary  work. 

Along  with  his  success  as  a  missionary 
he  was  also  a  noted  scientist.  A  half  cen¬ 
tury  before  Livingstone  and  Stanley,  Wilson 
was  an  authority  on  Africa,  and  his  name 
was  well  known  in  scientific  circles  in 
Europe  and  America.  He  had  acquaintance 
with  all  kinds  of  African  wild  beasts  and 
reptiles.  His  crowning  contribution  was  the 
discovery  of  the  gorilla.  In  1846  he  discov¬ 
ered  the  skull  of  this  new  ape,  to  which  he 
gave  the  name  “gorilla.”  This  aroused  such 
great  interest  that  exploration  parties  were 
organized  to  search  for  a  living  specimen. 
Paul  Du  Chaillu,  the  great  African  naturalist, 
who  was  a  pupil  of  Mr.  Wilson,  was  the  first 
to  find  one.  Later  Wilson  presented  the 
Natural  History  Society  of  Boston  with  a 
full-size  skeleton. 

Another  discovery  made  by  Wilson  was 
that  of  African  rubber.  It  was  due  to  his 
efforts  that  the  attention  of  the  commercial 
wrorld  wms  turned  to  the  extensive  rubber 
fields  of  this  great  continent. 


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As  a  linguist,  Wilson  reduced  two  African 
languages  to  writing,  the  Grebo  and  Mpon- 
gwe.  This  was  a  difficult  feat,  as  there  wTas 
no  written  language  or  alphabet  of  any 
kind.  He  prepared  grammars  and  diction¬ 
aries  and  taught  the  natives  to  read.  In 
1840  his  mission  press  was  printing  16  sep¬ 
arate  publications.  The  total  number  of  vol¬ 
umes  at  that  time  was  25,000. 

Doubtless  the  most  valuable  book  of  which 
Wilson  was  the  author  was  “Western  Afri¬ 
ca.”  David  Livingstone  declared  it  to  be 
“the  best  book  ever  written  on  that  part  of 
Africa.”  The  book  was  encyclopaedic  in 
character  and  most  of  its  descriptions  were 
from  the  personal  observations  and  investi¬ 
gations  of  the  author  during  his  nineteen 
years  of  actual  contact  with  the  African 
wilds. 

No  sketch  of  Wilson  would  be  complete 
without  mention  of  his  valuable  assistance 
in  the  suppression  of  the  horrible  slave 
trade.  He  saw  it  at  its  worst.  Through  a 
document  which  he  prepared,  10,000  of  which 
were  distributed  in  England,  the  British 
Government  was  persuaded  to  retain  its 
squadron  along  the  west  coast  of  Africa. 
This  had  a  serious  effect  upon  the  traffic 
and  led  eventually  to  the  suppression  of  the 
horrible  traffic!  in  slaves. 

After  nineteen  years  of  hard  but  success¬ 
ful  service  in  Africa,  his  health  began  to 
fail,  and  in  1852  Wilson  was  obliged  to  re¬ 
turn  to  America.  He  then  became  Secretary 
of  the  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church,  with  headquarters  at 
New  York.  He  rendered  most  valuable  serv¬ 
ices  in  this  capacity.  Because  of  his  efforts 
the  first  missionary  work  of  the  Presbyte¬ 
rian  church  in  Brazil  was  started. 

When  the  ports  of  Japan  were  forced  open 
by  Commodore  Perry,  it  was  through  the 
wise  suggestion  of  Dr.  Wilson  that  Dr.  Hep¬ 
burn,  who  was  then  his  family  physician, 

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was  sent  to  that  country.  Dr.  Hepburn  be¬ 
came  one  of  the  leading  figures  in  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  Christianity  and  education  in 
Japan. 

At  the  breaking  out  of  the  Civil  War,  Dr. 
Wilson  gave  up  liis  position,  in  which  he  had 
endeared  himself  to  everyone,  and  with  deep 
sorrow  went  South  to  his  old  home.  During 
the  war  the  responsibility  of  supplying  the 
chaplains  for  the  army  lay  upon  him,  and 
at  its  close  he  was  a  great  power  in  the  re¬ 
construction  of  the  Southern  Presbyterian 
church.  With  the  depleted  condition  of  the 
South  the  task  of  holding  the  church  to¬ 
gether  was  an  extremely  difficult  one.  No 
man  exerted  a  greater  influence  at  this  time 
than  he.  He  became  their  secretary  of  Do¬ 
mestic  Missions.  But  his  heart  was  in  the 
Foreign  Missionary  enterprise.  The  church 
had  not  gotten  thoroughly  on  its  feet  before 
he  urged  the  establishment  of  a  foreign  mis¬ 
sionary  board.  Quite  naturally  the  General 
Assembly  turned  to  him,  with  his  unusual 
experience  and  ability,  to  become  the  first 
secretary  of  this  board.  His  biographer 
claims  that  this  service  was  the  most  impor¬ 
tant  in  his  life. 

In  1877  failing  health  caused  him  to  resign. 
He  was  then  made  secretary  emeritus,  which 
position  he  held  until  his  death  on  July  13, 
1886,  one  year  after  the  death  of  his  wife. 
For  77  years  this  sainted  man  had  poured 
out  his  life  on  the  altar  of  God  in  most  sacri¬ 
ficial  service  to  His  cause.  “Who  follows  in 
his  train?” 

Schenectady,  N.  Y. 


NOTE:  The  foregoing  is  reprinted,  by  per¬ 
mission  of  the  author,  from  the  June,  1918, 
issue  of  “Union  Alumni  Monthly,”  published 
by  the  Graduate  Council  of  Union  College, 
Schenectady,  New  York. — J.  I.  A. 


SERVICE,  9-10-18-2M 
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